Every day I went to the ballpark in Yankee Stadium as well as on the road people were on my back. The last six years in the American League were mental hell for me. I was drained of all my desire to play baseball.

It would have been a helluva lot more fun if I had never hit those 61 homeruns... all it brought me was headaches.

It's a business. If I could make more money down in the zinc mines I'd be mining zinc.

Maybe I'm not a great man but I damn well want to break the record.

I never wanted all this hoopla. All I wanted was to be a good ball player and hit twenty-five or thirty homers, drive in a hundred runs, hit .280 and help my club win pennants. I just wanted to be one of the guys, an average player having a good season.

Now they talk on the radio about the record set by (Babe) Ruth, and (Joe) DiMaggio and Henry Aaron. But they rarely mention mine. Do you know what I have to show for the sixty-one home runs? Nothing, exactly nothing.

It's like obituaries, when you die they finally give you good reviews.